First of all, I would take anything from Darren Rovell with a ton of salt. He's an idiot, and has been wrong and duped by "sources" many, many times.

But even taking his information as fact, every school asked would still sign up on the spot. The idea of 3-5 teams banding together and trying to negotiate anything more than exit fee relief is silly. The minute a real invite comes, they would put on their sluttiest dress become a gleeful whore to the C7. They'd be stupid not to.

__________________
Sure, I've been called a xenophobe, but the truth is, I'm not. I honestly just feel that America is the best country and the other countries aren't as good. That used to be called patriotism.

I think it's all dependent on the conditions. Is this a permanant inequity? If it is, you are stuck on an uneven playing field with the schools that are doubling your revenue indefinitely. That gives you a greater chance of being a permanant doormat in their league while facing a voting block of the original BE7 schools who want to maintain that competitive advantage over you as long as possible. They will probably never let the schools who have agreed to an unequal cut to become a part of the majority by voting in more than 12 teams. In other words, they control your destiny and have a built in sizable competitive advantage over you.

evidently fox sports is alergic to profits. no one is going to tune in for providence-depaul-seton hall-st johns. i'll say it again, the only thing separating these schools from fordham and la salle was them playing syracuse, uconn and louisville a few times a year.

xavier and butler are both going to continue to dominate the ncaa shares and they'll also have to kiss the monetary ring of the likes of depaul.

Say they split evenly with 12 teams, that is about 3Mill to the good. What about NCAA credits? Believe in the short term it will be dramatically less with the C7 even if they can take their NCAA credits to the new conference.

There are some X fans that seem to know a lot about NCAA credits. Can you summarize the true difference for year one.
For this year take the 6 year average of the A10 and the C7.

My guess it will still be a 2.5 Mill to the good, but ammo to fight non-equal sharing the TV revenue.

Adam, I can't speak to Dayton. I'll tell you right now this would be a non-starter for Butler, if the report is materially accurate and if I know anything about the school, and from I'm seeing for Xavier as well. UD may have given up, can't find fault if that s the case

But I'm sure the proposed deal is contingent to the teams added anyway.

A review of the history of the Fox network(s) may be in order. Remember when they first decided to become a network? People laughed - until The Simpsons and a few other shows got very popular. Remember when they first won the bid to broadcast the NFL's NFC conference? People thought they were crazy for bidding so much - until they realized that the NFC was based in the most desirable cities as far as number of viewers, etc.

Those Fox guys are very, very shrewd and would only enter into such an agreement if they thought there was long term money to be made. Their history shows that.

My guess is that after management realized the money they put aside for the new Big East contract would be available for other uses, they decided to realign the priorities. The new Big East isn't going to draw squat in tv money, and that "found" money can be used for other sports inventory. Here is a chance for them to create something new and attack ESPN. Clearly CBS and NBC are thinking the same thing.

Irony of ironies, ESPN in their early years approached the old Southwest Conference about an exclusive tv deal for basketball. And those forward thinking boobs at UT, A&M, and other places turned them down. Hence the multiple games of the old Sunbelt Conference on ESPN at that time. I mean, really, the Univ. of New Orleans was on more in those years than Georgetown is today.

__________________
If you are going to have sex with an animal, make sure it is a horse. That way, if it does not work out, you always have a ride home. So sayeth Willie Nelson.

Fox Sports doesn't have any inventory. When they re-launch Versus, they're going to need programming. This conference gives them just that. As more of these sports networks pop up (Fox, NBCSN, CBSSN), they're going to start paying more in order to get sports and their games on their stations.

Versus turned into NBCSN,& it already has re-launched. It is the home for A-10 and CAA hoops..they also own the rights to the NHL

A review of the history of the Fox network(s) may be in order. Remember when they first decided to become a network? People laughed - until The Simpsons and a few other shows got very popular. Remember when they first won the bid to broadcast the NFL's NFC conference? People thought they were crazy for bidding so much - until they realized that the NFC was based in the most desirable cities as far as number of viewers, etc.

Those Fox guys are very, very shrewd and would only enter into such an agreement if they thought there was long term money to be made. Their history shows that.

My guess is that after management realized the money they put aside for the new Big East contract would be available for other uses, they decided to realign the priorities. The new Big East isn't going to draw squat in tv money, and that "found" money can be used for other sports inventory. Here is a chance for them to create something new and attack ESPN. Clearly CBS and NBC are thinking the same thing.

Irony of ironies, ESPN in their early years approached the old Southwest Conference about an exclusive tv deal for basketball. And those forward thinking boobs at UT, A&M, and other places turned them down. Hence the multiple games of the old Sunbelt Conference on ESPN at that time. I mean, really, the Univ. of New Orleans was on more in those years than Georgetown is today.

Excellent post.

It amazes me that a number of people around here can only see 10 feet out of their binoculars. This is about television investing to build a brand. It may or may not work, but the precedent has already been set. It's called ESPN with the BE, starting in the late 70's. Now consider the advances in media and device technology that will serve as accelerators.

Nonetheless, if it's real, then try this on for size: the C7 need an assist to extract earlier than 2015. I'm okay - as a fan - with the imbalanced payments, assuming they are necessary to make the earlier transition out of the existing BE happen, and that they eventually give way to balanced payments.

You have to believe that the Presidents are very well connected on matters like this. Either conference calls or confidential emails occur BEFORE news like this is released. I can't imagine the C7 Presidents would not have called Father Graham (Xavier) and Butler's President to provide them a heads-up and explanation, something along the lines of:

"The deal that is coming together from one party includes $x million for 12 years. However, as you know, we are faced with certain financial issues in extracting ourselves from the BE as it exists now, particularly with respect to fees that we'll have to pay in order for all of us to come together by x-date, versus waiting for 2015, which isn't practical for any of us. We collectively need $x million to make our new conference happen in 2013, all of which is related to exit fees. Are you okay if we run this at $5mm/$2.5mm for y years and then level it out?"

Answer: "Yes, but we have to make sure that Xavier and Butler are being welcomed in as peers and not second class citizens. At the appropriate moment - when the press release for announcing the new league is put out, it should include an explanation of the reason for the imbalanced payments and that we'll migrate to a balanced payment format as of y date."

I would hope the REASON for the imbalanced payments includes a valid economic issue related to putting the thing together. Otherwise, if this is an opening negotiating position, it is virtual suicide, as I doubt any of the C7 Presidents are dumb enough to negotiate through the press. And their greedy posture would be laughable.

TIME HURTS THE C7. The longer this drags out, if they are in fact being greedy, the more time Xavier and Butler have to work with Dayton, SLU and Creighton to flank them, assuming the current A10 TV contract is amendable. It wouldn't be as good as $5mm per school, but if it means even $2mm per school, any difference would not be worth the perceived second class/steerage treatment offered by the C7. Then again, for X and company to get to a better TV agreement for the A10, material changes to the A10 would be necessary, and the A10 isn't willing to improve itself in that regard.

Xudash - that's a reasonable analysis. My suspicion is that the new league will just reserve some of the contract money for exit fees and then divide the remaining money evenly. In my opinion there is zero chance of Xavier and Butler NOT joining the C7. The only way Xavier and Butler stay in the A10 is if the deadwood of the A10 is jettisoned and a new TV contract is signed. Neither seem likely to me.

In addition to scenerio that Dash set up, there are administrative fees, consulting fees, paperwork, flights, hotel rooms, meeting rooms, etc... Real costs involved in the setup of that thing. At the moment, the CE7 are carrying the weight of those costs. I have no idea how much those costs are, how large they are, but you roll all that up w/ the potential exit fees and loss of NCAA credit money and perhaps its what they need to keep everything afloat for the first handful of years. As long as the agreement was in place up front that the CE7 got $x more than anyone else for the first handful of years to recoup their losses/costs associated with this then all TV money was split evenly going forward, I don't think too many of the considered schools would have a problem with that.

However, if its not explicitly put in writting that all TV money is split equally at some point moving forward up front, buyer beware.